Learning Diary - Aldona Kleiviene - VALED

TELŠIŲ ŠVIETIMO CENTRAS_____________________________________________________________________________________“Valuing Adult Education” (VALED)Grundtvig PartnershipMeeting in Telsiai (Lithuania) 2012-06-14/17DIARYThe second meeting of all project partners was prepared and steered by the team of Telsiai Education Centre. It wasthe challenging task for us and we tried to do our best for the partners coming to our town Telsiai and we did it withpleasure.On Thursday, the 14 th of June in the evening, all participants of the meeting arrived to Telsiai and we met in café“Senoji kvorta” for dinner. It was nice to see all partners – familiar and new faces in our small town. We canimagine how our guests from such a big city like Viena felt there…But we hope all liked our quiet but nice townand our country.On Friday, the 15 th of June in the morning the meeting was started with Lithuanian words “Labas rytas”(Goodmorning) and “Mano vardas……”(My name is…) – everyone had to say it to whole project group. It was a shortLithuanian lesson…☺ Also the participants of the meeting got acquainted with our town Telsiai (presentation madeby Rasa, the project learner of Telsiai team) and Lithuania (Youtube: lithuania 2009 video presentationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TetroK2KmeA; )After short acquaintance with our town and country, the project meeting No2 started. Its topic was “Value Changeand Values in different contexts (society, culture, religion)”. On this day, six workshops – six presentations wereplanned and realised. Between the meetings in Pitesti and Telsiai from November 2011 to June 2012, all partnershad the task to research the national, regional and institutional documents looking for values and for definitions ofthe terms “value” and “value in adult education”.Workshop 1 (Lithuania)Results of the research on values in Lithuania: most important values for Lithuania are democraticy (mentioned in5 docs), respect for the tradition of Lithuanian culture and the cultural diversity of the world (4 doc.), tolerance (3doc.), patriotism (3 doc.).Values of TEC coinciding with national values are empathy and tolerance, preservation of national identity,respect for the world and the EU countries' educational and cultural traditions. Other values of TEC are positiveorganizational climate, desire to grow and change, responsibility and teamwork, respect, trust, competence andintegrity based cooperation with educational community of the district.Workshop 2 (United Kingdom)Yale College‘s six core values: exceptional learning and teaching is at the heart of all they do; they value andrespect staff and students by fostering their personal development; they work together positively as coleaques andwith externak partners; they strive for excellence in everything they do, they act with integrity, honesty andfairness; they turn commitment and values into action;Workshop 3 (Austria)Conclusions: the principles of Life Long learning are the most important values in adult Education, i.e. equality ofopportunity,social mobility, sustainabolity and quality etc.Workshop 4 (Germany)Conclusions: Every person has his own experiences in the course of his life. Some are valuable and some will befor sure without any value. One finds his life valuable, the other one doesn’t know whether his life is of any valueat all.Life can get a higher value if you are dealing with values and find orientation out of them.

The question whether education has/is a value can clearly be affirmed. Since certain time everybody is talkingabout “added value”, usually linked to the term “tax”. Value-based adult education encourages everybody to thinkabout the added value of life.Workshop 5 (Romania)Conclusions: value has a strong personal reference; value is also related to interest; value change in time;values tend to influence attitudes and behaviour. Talking about values and observing them from all the fields theyoperate, values brings us only benefits and let us see to which extend these values are important to us and how theycan influence our life.Workshop 6 (Turkey)Turkish partners as a conclusion presented seven Advices of Mevlana (Religious Values): 1. In generosity andhelping others, be like a river. 2. In compassion and grace be like the sun. 3. In concealing others’ faults be like thenight. 4. In anger and fury be like dead. 5. In modesty and humility be like the earth 6. In tolerance be like the sea.7. Either exist as you as you are or be as you look.On Saturday, the 16 th June, the participants got to know the project “Weltethos” (global ethic) when discussing thequestion of globality.All the time spent with the project partners we had a wonderful time being together and talking to each other aboutus and our experience.After workshops the participants visited Samogitian Village Museum, on Saturday in the afternoon all projectpartners went to Palanga where they spent the time discussing about the values they found in Lithuania andenjoying the sea, also walking in pinewood.Oursides we thank all the partners coming to Telsiai for their friendship, tolerance and moral backing.Aldona Kleiviene,Telsiai Education Centre